Spain reaches new record of 22.3 million workers but the fall in unemployment stagnates

Employment

The Social Security system has added almost 232,000 employees before the start of the summer and unemployment has registered its lowest level since 2007

Wendy Dávila

Every year, the labour market enters summer with a strong increase in employment and significant reductions in unemployment.

However, this May, employment faces the summer with a new record of registered workers after Social Security reached a peak for another month, achieving 22,337,806 workers for the first time. This is thanks to the surge in the hospitality sector, which accounted for almost three out of every ten new jobs.

At the same time, however, the decline in unemployment has lost momentum.

This May's surge in employment follows the unprecedented figures from Semana Santa, which pushed the number of registered workers above 22 million for the first time. This boom typically wanes as the tourist season progresses.

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• Employment

  • the extraordinary regularisation process, foreigners accounted for almost half of the new jobs in May, gaining 111,301 contributors compared to April (+3.4%), reaching a new high of 3,359,548 employed.

    Non-nationals now represent 15% of all contributors to the Social Security system, helping reduce the number of registered unemployed. Specifically, there were 3,673 fewer unemployed foreigners in May compared to April, bringing the total to 337,858.

    Permanent but unstable contracts

    In May, almost 31,000 people signed more than one permanent contract, according to data from Randstad, to carry out temporary activities. This sets the conditions for more unstable permanent employment compared to what existed before the labour reform.

    A total of 1,323,719 contracts were registered in the fifth month of the year, 0.4% less than in May 2025. Of all, 572,061 were permanent contracts: 234,774 full-time contracts, 5% more than in May last year; 135,409 part-time (+9.1%); and 201,878 fixed intermittent (-1.5%).